This node is not here to tell you about what Fable was supposed to be (Project: Ego), which it isn’t, but instead what Fable is, which is still pretty good. It is a fairly well put together game, with an interesting, yet short, storyline. If you are not a hardcoregamer, and managed to not be horribly swayed by the propaganda machine, you will enjoy this game very much. If not, then you will still probably enjoy it, if you can get past its faults.

If you were dissapointed scroll down to the last section.

The Game:

Fable is set in the mythicalworld of Albion, another fantasy revision of England. As a young boy, your village is burned to the ground. Your father killed before your eyes, and for all you know, your mother and sister as well. You are taken in by Maze, the patron of the Guild of Heroes, who trains you so that one day you can find the ones responsible for what happened to your village, and either bring them to justice, or exact your bloody revenge. You path from now on either righteous or malicious, is your decision.

Game Play:

Fable is about as sandbox as an RPG can be. Throughout the game you are given various quests. There are the main story quests, and also optional side quests that will award you with treasure and renown.

Renown is very important because along with your alignment and appearance, it affects how the NPCs react to you. There are some quests that you will not be allowed to do unless the NPCs think you are strong enough to accomplish it. With enough renown you gain expressions that you can use to either make people like or despise you.

Alignment effects how guards react to you. If you are good and orderly, they will ignore you for the most part, and you can bribe then to look the other way as you break into houses and stores to steal from them.

There are alas only three quests that give you a choice of which side of the law you are on. Most of the quests are morallyambiguous, though several force you to do good acts to achieve them, and one side quest at the end that is entirely evil.

You appearance is important. Every piece of clothing, armor, hair style, tattoo, and facial hair grooming option, has an attractiveness, scariness, and alignment modifier. Brighter clothing will make you more attractive, darker will make you look scarier, though so much cooler.

You can woo almost every character in the game, male and female alike. You will be able to get married to one person in every town, own houses and stores, that you rent out.

In every town and encampment there are traders and gamblers. Traders will allow you to buy and sell items, dependant of each situation. The economy system is dynamic, working on a supply and demand system. You may encounter some traders that will only sell, and some that will only buy. Traders, barbers, and tattooists walk the open areas outside of towns as well.

The gamblers will allow you to play different bar games, such as black jack, and memory games. There is also a coin golf game. You can place bets on each, and each has a bonus prize for a high enough score or fast enough time.

Throughout the game are Demon Doors which require you to perform certain tasks, or gain enough weight (i.e. pork out on meat, pie, and crunchy chickens) , to satisfy them, so you that you may proceed to secret areas. Three of them are required to be done for story quests.

There are Cullis Gates around the world which let you teleport form one area to another.

Combat and Character leveling:

Combat is fairly simple. You have a primary melee weapon (sword, mace, axe, scythe, wooden stick, and frying pan), a ranged weapon (bow, crossbow) and magic, as well as unarmed combat. If you are hurt, and don’t tend to your wounds, then you will gain scars.

Using your melee weapon consists of just swinging the thing around by pressing the attack button. If you lock on to an enemy you can circle it, but unless your weapon has a long enough range, you will only harm one enemy allowing for the others to smack at you freely. There is a dodge button that allows you to roll away in any direction, and flourishes, which are powerful, unblockable attacks that are only available if you have a high enough combat multiplier, basically a to-hit ratio. If you use a light weapon, you can increase your speed skill and swing faster. Increasing strength deals more damage.

The ranged weapons are a bit more complex, in that each has a different reload time, and damage is dependant on how far you pull back on the bowstring. Using the bow allows you to fire off shots very rapidly, while a crossbow requires you to reload after every shot, but do more damage. Pressing in on the left analog stick brings up the manual aiming function, but accidentally pressing it can be very annoying during combat. You will be able to upgrade your speed and accuracy with these weapons. A head shot will decapitate human enemies.

Many of the weapons you find will have an augmentation slot, allowing you to customize each to your tastes. There are some rare weapons that you find which will have their slots already filled. The Prima strategy guide does have some incorrect information on this section however.

Magic in Fable is even more complex. To cast magic without having to go through the pop up menu you have to assign certain spells to the colored buttons, and then switch between sets of spells. Every spell can be upgraded. They range from casting fireballs, healing yourself and others, to summoning monsters, and even slowing time. Most of the spells have an alignment modifier, and the use of magic ages you.

Finishing quests and killing things gives you four different types of experience; strength, skill, will, and general. You can buy upgrades with experience points at the guild. Strength allows for upgrading your strength, health, and toughness. Skill allows for speed, accuracy, and guile (stealth, thievery, and negotiating modifiers). Magic lets you upgrade the three schools of magic, and also your general magical ability. General is extra points that can be put into anything.

Control:

One of the main problems with the game is the controls. In trying to make the game so open and accessible to everyone, they ended up binding a large amount of functions to the controller. Many functions overlap each other, but you can manually bind items and expressions to the d-pad, and sets of spells to the four colored buttons.

A better organization of functions would be required for future games in the series.

Aesthetics:

The game in itself is very visually stunning. The architecture and fluidity of motion in the characters is especially noticeable. Each town has its own style and feel.

The non-character NPCs, those not really part of the story, are made of various body and head types. Every line of dialogue is voice recorded, and while walking around you may hear some interesting things. Some women may see you and swoon at how handsome you are, wandering merchants will announce how they have, “Stuff available!” among other things. NPCs will cheer you or runaway in fear. Each of the story characters has their own voice actor and unique body to make them stand out.

The HUD can be made as opaque or transparent as you feel comfortable with. The only problem however, that I have found is that there is a filter over everything, so that you don’t notice the polygons. This is fine and adds to the atmosphere, unfortunately it makes some of the smaller detail, especially those on the card games, hard to make out.

There is something I have to say. And I have to say it because I love making games. When a game is in development, myself and the development teams I work with constantly encourage each other to think of the best features and the most ground-breaking design possible.

However, what happens is that we strive to include absolutely everything we've ever dreamt of and, in my enthusiasm, I talk about it to anyone who'll listen, mainly in press interviews. When I tell people about what we're planning, I'm telling the truth, and people, of course, expect to see all the features I've mentioned. And when some of the most ambitious ideas get altered, redesigned or even dropped, people rightly want to know what happened to them.

If I have mentioned any feature in the past which, for whatever reason, didn't make it as I described into Fable, I apologise. Every feature I have ever talked about WAS in development, but not all made it. Often the reason is that the feature did not make sense. For example, three years ago I talked about trees growing as time past. The team did code this but it took so much processor time (15%) that the feature was not worth leaving in. That 15 % was much better spent on effects and combat. So nothing I said was groundless hype, but people expecting specific features which couldn't be included were of course disappointed. If that's you, I apologise. All I can say is that Fable is the best game we could possibly make, and that people really seem to love it.

I have come to realise that I should not talk about features too early so I am considering not talking about games as early as I do. This will mean that the Lionhead games will not be known about as early as they are, but I think this is the more industry standard.

Our job as the Lionhead family of studios is to be as ambitious as we possibly can. But although we jump up and down in glee about the fabulous concepts and features we're working on, I will not mention them to the outside world until we've implemented and tested them, and they are a reality.

In the Xbox game Fable, there is an extremely powerful bow called the Bow of Skorm. This bow kicks ass! It, like all other legendary wepons in the game, has preset augmentations; specifically, sharpening and lightning. The lightning does extra damage to things that are harmed by electricity, and the sharpening does extra damage to everything.

The morality of ones character must be 100% virtuous, otherwise the pursuit of this bow is a lost cause, and since you're on the good side you can get about anyone to follow you, but not just any follower will work. A "hired helper" will always prove more worthy to the ALL MIGHTY SKORM (*sarcastically* oh no, another wrathful god). You can only take two mercenaries at once, although you can make more trips, and merchants prove better than the town folk, villagers reward you with fewer evil points. Sacrificing these followers whilst being on the good side nets you many more "bad points" than if you were already evil.

Also, it is better to complete this quest during the nighttime. When you have performed enough sacrifices to please the "ALMIGHTY EVIL ONE," you will be rewarded with the Bow of Skorm. Fill your quiver and watch the heads fly!

(author's note- anent the peculiar notion that a person's religion or belief system has any connection to their actions)

Long
ago when the World was new made, there were only the beasts of the Forest and Sea and Plain and Man was but a dream in the mind of the
Eternal.

Now
at this time in the Forest all the animals lived on plants and
grasses and the leaves of the tall growing trees, on the fruits of
the earth, nuts and berries each in its season. All – save one who
was different. Let us call him Lion, and he was the first of his
kind. Lion alone lived on the flesh of the others, lived by murder
and slaughter, hunting and slaying for his food.

Now
it came to pass that the other animals wearied of this, and one day
they met together to discuss the matter. It is not right, they said
to one another, that one of us should live by preying on all the
others, that we who love peace and tranquility should therefore live
in terror and distress. Then they thought, and argued and sought for
a solution. The burrowing people, Rabbit and Badger and Mole, said
'Let us dig a deep pit, and lure Lion therein.'

'Nay,'
said the others, 'for Lion is stronger than any of us, and he will
surely escape, be the trap ever so deep. Then will his anger be great
and our lot worse than before,

'
Let us flee to the far corners of the world, then, ' said the fleet
footed, Deer and Antelope and tiny Gazelle, ' leaving this forest to
Lion, so that we can live in safety. ' But the other animals laughed,
saying, ' What foolishness, to take away his food, and believe he
will not follow, yea, even to the ends of the earth.'

Then
there was a crashing and a heavy tread in the undergrowth, and
Elephant appeared, and at this all the other animals fell silent, for
Elephant, though he spoke seldom, was accounted by them all as the
wisest and most deep thinking of beasts, and indeed it is believed to
this day that those with the fewest words speak the most sense.

'
We are eaters of leaves and grass and the fruits of the earth,' said
Elephant, 'and we are at peace with one another, is that not so?'
All the animals agreed that this was no more than the truth. 'Then it
seems to me that if Lion ate as we do, he would have no need to prey
upon us.' rumbled Elephant, swaying to and fro and flapping his great
ears.

All
of the animals could see the sense of this, and marvelled that they
had not thought of it before. Only Rabbit scratched his head and
asked, 'But who will prevail upon Lion to change what he eats?'

At
this Elephant drew himself up and curled his great trunk, and said,
'I shall reason with him, for I do not fear Lion. ' Then Elephant
went and found Lion, and explained to him the distress he was
causing, and how all the animals wished him to change his ways, and
eat the leaves and the grass and the fruits of the earth as they did.
And so pursuasive his words, and so wise they seemed, that Lion
listened and promised that he would try. And whether his agreement
had anything to do with the vast bulk of Elephant, or the sharpness
of his tusks or the power of his trunk which could uproot the
stoutest tree, this tale does not say.

Thus
Lion ceased hunting his fellow beasts, and each day to help him
change his ways the animals would select the most delicate plants,
tender leaves from the top of the trees, and fruits and nuts such as
they all loved, and Elephant would bring this new food and lay it
before Lion, and stand solemnly by while he ate, and praise him
after.

Lion
tried to comply with this new diet, for he feared Elephant for his
size and strength, but there was no convincing his stomach, which did
not like the new food, and often after Elephant had departed his
stomach would reject what he had eaten, and Lion grew thin and bad
tempered by reason of his stomach which instead of purring in
contentment began to growl and torment him with cramps.

So
angry did Lion become in consequence that one day when Elephant
arrived bearing his offering of berries and leaves, Lion forgot his
fear, and such was his rage that he leapt upon Elephant and broke
his neck. Then he raged through the forest, killing and devouring all
that he met, until finally being sated he retired to his cave and lay
down to sleep.

Then
the animals who had survived met together, and great was their
confusion and distress at the failure of their plan which had seemed
so wise. Indeed, the confusion and distress persists to this day, for
no one seems able to learn that no matter what a Lion eats it turns
into Lion.